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A Look At the "Information Superhighway," As It Looked In 1985
jfruh writes "AT&T's video library is a treasure trove of future-looking films from the past, and this one is no exception. Combining what might be the first on-film use of the phrase 'information superhighway' with predictions of Siri-like services and sweet '80s computer graphics, this offers a valuable look at how close we came to our past's future."
I've always found it interesting, how projections get the basic concepts right, but they completely miss on the piratical implementation of things. In TNG everyone caries around a small computing pad, but they seem to keep several of them from different reports and do not have any internal communication systems unless they download from a master main frame
Early on one of the interviews talks about full volumetric holographic displays by the end of the centuries, but ignores the middle ground of real time video transmission on existing displays. And the artistic renderings through out the video's keep displays as simple monochrome 13inch displays, because no one seems to imagine a high resolution color display, but they can predict the need for a network based communication network to transmit idea's.
The basics of the video are valid and a good projection to modern times, but all of the interpretations of how it will be implemented show a limitation based on 1985's existing tech. You see this same limitation in the early 1950/1960's articles on the world of tomorrow.
Momento Mori
The Ontario Science Centre in the mid-1970s was wicked cool. The glimpses into the future were all there for you to touch and play with. (The Philips Coffee Machine was one of my favorites). Sadly, science museums have devolved into environmentalism and global warming preaching which by comparison is about as much fun as watching the organic, free-range, fair-trade grass grow.
We really didn't even get this until about 1995!
Sure we did. I was here in the early 80's, and know people who were here in the late 70's.
The AOL crowd showed up in the mid 90's and essentially destroyed the original internet culture. This was not an improvement.